A Word to the Unwise

By

Dave Shiflett

Updated May 26, 2000 12:01 a.m. ET

W hen our eldest son announced he would not proceed directly from high school to college, there was elation all around. Among other things, this means that we will not be required, in a mere four years, to suffer a commencement address -- which by modern definition is a lukewarm (at best) rhetorical feast served beneath a blazing sun, usually by a speaker who has nothing to say and 20 minutes or so to prove it.

Yet there is value in the study of commencement speeches at this time of year, when hundreds of thousands of...